Let us start this rant with the obvious: real life sucks.
True, it sucks in various ways – in the People’s Republic of China, there is
Hong Kong, in the RF – Moscow, and in the US – there is the Donald. It makes
one wonder if Mr. Epstein didn’t commit suicide just to get away from it all;
makes my problem – the fact that I’ve missed the AoS ‘S6 finale’ look
positively pitiful.
…Of course, AoS in itself has become rather pitiful: the
final two episodes – a double feature! – received some of the lowest numbers
there were in AoS history, and that considering that on average AoS S6 did
pretty good in its’ run. True, the fact that its’ other half – the so-called
AoS S7 – will be airing only in summer 2020 – doesn’t help in the long run, but
that is how life works. Anything else?
Officially – on 2019’s Comic-Con and the like – AoS did its’
best to pretend that Jeff Ward (Deke Shaw on the show) is one of them, possibly
to counter the damage presented by him, when he stated on CM movie premiere
back in spring 2019 that he and Iain hate each other; it was a better job than the
one done by team Marvel, when they had Tandy and Detective Mandy appear on the
‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ premiere to pretend that it was a part of the Marvel crew;
that was simply sad – but Jeff Ward’s status on the show isn’t much better. Due
to me missing the final three episodes, I do not know if he is with Snowflake
or not, but if he is, it will certainly be a good and a convenient way for AoS
to take him out of the picture without much of an effort.
No, seriously, while it is sad that May has died, and Yo-Yo may
have died, and some other people have died, the truth is that people have died
on AoS all the time, but as long as they were needed, they came back. And if
they weren’t – they were gone, just ask Blood and Palicki; Blood did return for
a S5 episode, but his role was perfunctory there, and when the old Marvel website published Blood’s
interview for Marvel, it was also perfunctory and short – clearly, things weren’t
as rosy there as Marvel wanted people to believe. Ah well, now that version of
the Marvel website is gone, and so’s that interview. Life goes on.
And so do the characters of AoS – they constantly die and
return. Coulson’s death was so tragic because he was supposed to stay dead, (CM the movie took place in
the past of MCU-verse, so Coulson there didn’t really count, his role was more
secondary to Fury’s, anyhow), but first we got ‘Sarge’, who was something of a
faux-Ghost Rider, and now Coulson/not-Coulson is coming back for real in S7.
Yay?
No, not exactly – yes, AoS as a whole retained a healthy fanbase, but the actual TV series has less
and less to do with it, as the fans continue to ignore it more and more. Once
the TV show is gone in 2020, the fanbase will go on, as it had done with GoT in
2019.
That deserves a mention of its’ own. GoT was also supposed
to be present on Comic-Con 2019, but given its’ rocky finale and its’
now-damaged relationship with its
fanbase…it did not. Seriously, its’ (former) cast and crew appeared on
Comic-Con 2019 in a much abridged group, and then they quickly left altogether,
leaving the fans behind. Yes, that was obviously intentional, seeing how the
show and its’ fans parted ways badly – the fans almost practically demanded a
remake of GoT S8, and the cast dismissed it very brutally, maybe unnecessarily
so – behold the power of Internet, where you can talk flak about other people
and they cannot do anything about it! …Oh wait, they can always confront you in
real life, face-to-face, on such an unconventional place as a Comic-Con, and
then what do you do? Apparently, you talk between each other, and eventually
reach a conclusion that while you do not
care about them, you are make sequels
and spin-offs, and what else have you from GoT, so you actually do not want to alienate your fans
further, lest they decide to abandon you completely in favor of something else.
This probably brings us to Martin-man himself – recently he
claimed to be relieved ‘to be free’ of HBO and GoT or whatever. Jolly good, but
we’re living in an age where printed media is on the downswing – I come to a
bookstore, and find it full of unsold books – Riordan, and J-Ro’s HP, and even
Martin’s ASOIAF sitting on shelves in various, glorious recent editions,
unsold. In fact, some of the bookstores themselves are closing and are remaking
themselves into Internet stores or something similar. By contrast, comic book
stores and the like are going on strong, which rather brings us back to AoS: in
the past, they tried to launch a comic series reminiscent of the series, but
they couldn’t make two full volumes of their comics – that’s less than 12
issues, i.e. Given how AoS is relatively successful on TV, this is just sad.
What next?
The other point of contention as to why my life sucks right now
is the Pathfinder RPG. It had rebooted itself into a second edition, which is
very much like the fifth edition D&D. D&D itself seems to be going
through some redesigning crisis, but we have largely dismissed it since the
fifth edition version took off. Are the two events connected? Hard to say.
…And getting back to our earlier discussion to the printed
media, it should be noted that in the 3.5 edition D&D, there were two
series of magazines, ‘Dragon’ and ‘Dungeon’. Actually, they were around since
the first and second editions of D&D, so they were formidable! And then,
when D&D switched from 3.5 to the 5th edition, those magazines
became completely online – you still had to buy them, of course, but it was all
done through Internet, and PayPal, and what else have you – and its’ old website
(from the 90s) became practically a paysite with minimum free features. D&D
attempted to do something similar in the past, true, but that transformation
was still unexpected, and not entirely welcome.
As for Pathfinder, their official website is largely a place
to buy slash order their products online, (if you cannot buy them physically in
stores), plus a forum, plus a newsboard – nothing so glamorous and encompassing
as what the D&D 3.5 edition used to have, but then again, by now they have
diversified into Starfinder as well – the sci-fi twin to Pathfinder’s fantasy.
Neat! And there are also websites that offer an access to information from most of the core books as well. Go
Pathfinder!
…Well, no, since its last campaign path – the one set to set
the PCs against Tar-Baphon – had devolved into a hot mess. Thank someone that
we did not get embroiled in it. But then again, this was supposed to be a rant
about why life sucks, but we have veered into something different entirely, so let
us call it a night and let us end here. Aka—
This is it for now, see you all soon!
PS: Here is an alebrije to finish off this rant, (from the
Pathfinder campaign path mentioned above):
CROCODILE CR 4
XP 600
N Large magical beast (extraplanar)
Init +1; Senses darkvision 120 ft., dreamsight, low-light
vision, scent; Perception +14
DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 10, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +6 natural, –1
size)
hp 32 (3d10+21)
Fort +6, Ref +4, Will +2
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft.; sprint
Melee bite +5 (1d10+8 plus grab) and tail slap +0 (1d12+6)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks death roll (1d8+6 plus trip)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd, concentration +3)
3/day—dream, nightmare (DC 11)
1/day—dream council (DC 12), dream travel (DC 12), mind
thrust III (DC 10), plane shift (self plus 50 lbs of objects only)
STATISTICS
Str 23, Dex 18, Con 21, Int 5, Wis 18, Cha 6
Base Atk +2; CMB +7 (+11 grapple); CMD 18 (22 vs. trip)
Feats Skill Focus (Perception, Stealth)
Skills Knowledge (arcana) +4, Knowledge (planes) +4, Perception
+14, Stealth +11 (+19 in water), Swim +16; Racial Modifiers +8 on Stealth in
water; Racial Modifiers +8 Knowledge (arcana), +8 Knowledge (planes)
SQ hold breath
Languages Common; telepathy 100 ft.
ECOLOGY
Environment warm rivers and marshes
Organization solitary, pair, or colony (3–12)
Treasure none
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Death Roll (Ex) When grappling a foe of its size or smaller,
a crocodile can perform a death roll upon making a successful grapple check. As
it clings to its foe, it tucks in its legs and rolls rapidly, twisting and
wrenching its victim. The crocodile inflicts its bite damage and knocks the
creature prone. If successful, the crocodile maintains its grapple.
Dreamsight (Su) Alebrijes are able to notice and locate
sleeping creatures within 500 ft., as well as creatures engaged in similar rest,
such as meditation or resting trances.
Hold Breath (Ex) A crocodile can hold its breath for a
number of rounds equal to 4 times its Constitution score before it risks
drowning.
Sprint (Ex) Once per minute a crocodile may sprint,
increasing its land speed to 40 feet for 1 round.
What do you think about it? How does it look?
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